


Without Saying It

by talithan



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 01:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2529551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talithan/pseuds/talithan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You did it on purpose,” Oliver realizes. “You wanted to meet my mom.” “What makes you say that?” Connor asks. “Either you wanted to meet my mom, or you missed me so much that you just had to come see me earlier than I said. Which one do you want to admit to?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without Saying It

**Author's Note:**

> on twitter:
> 
> @sasaharamaki: @punkpadfoot do you think they've cuddled
> 
> @punkpadfoot: @sasaharamaki ya AND I think Connor is not that opposed to meeting Oliver's mom despite the way he teases >__> somebody write it. U write it
> 
> @sasaharamaki: @punkpadfoot god if i write htgawm fic it'll just be 300% self-insert stuff, i would just make oliver's mom my actual mom
> 
> @punkpadfoot: @sasaharamaki THEN DO IT
> 
> @sasaharamaki: @punkpadfoot oh god
> 
> @punkpadfoot: @sasaharamaki PLEASE MARINA write me some rly great Oliver centric fic
> 
> —
> 
> tl;dr this is all cait's fault
> 
> idk if it's rly great but it sure is self-indulgent :D

They don’t talk about rules—that would make this a relationship. They have them. They just can’t _talk_ about them.

But Oliver’s brain is built on rules, on structure, on routine, and so his mental list of their unspoken not-relationship rules writes itself.

First, no plans more than two days in advance. No plans more than fifteen minutes in advance, if Connor could help it, but he had to compromise in order to keep this thing going. (This compromise didn’t happen out loud, obviously.) Sometimes he shows up at Oliver’s door without warning. Sometimes he texts him in the afternoon to see if he’s free that night. And sometimes he just says, “Don’t make plans on Sunday.” Not “We’re doing something on Sunday,” mind you. That would—well, you see how this goes.

Second, no plans more than two days in a row. Overnight stays count as two days.

Third, no discussing anything that happened more than two days ago. Connor’s current case? Fair game. Where Connor went to college? Off the table. “Two days” is loosest here, but Oliver needed a guideline to avoid any repeats of that time he asked if Connor had any siblings and Connor went home with his takeout only half-finished and no orgasms on either side.

“This case is kicking my ass,” Connor says tonight, on the other end of the line. “You’re going to help me loosen up on Saturday.”

“Loosen up your ass?” Oliver jokes. It sounds less funny aloud than it did in his head and he immediately wishes he could take it back. He was too distracted to self-censor; Saturday is in four days.

“We’ll see,” is all Connor says in response.

Oliver has always been thankful Connor doesn’t mind phone calls over texting. It limits the time he can spend agonizing over what to say or what Connor might say back.

“Miss Priss is giving me that look,” he says. “I should go.” 

“Mmkay,” Oliver says. He can hear one of the other interns—Michaela, he assumes—speaking angrily in the background. “Later.” Then, just as he moves the phone from his ear to hang up, “Oh, fuck. Wait.”

“I’d say I don’t have time for phone sex, but I really want to see what kind of face you’d make if I—”

He cuts off, laughing, as whoever the second part was directed towards exclaims in disgust.

“No,” Oliver says, “it’s—I can’t this weekend.”

He winces at Connor’s silence and weighs his options as to what explanation to give. 

“My mom is visiting. We have tickets to _Once_ on Saturday.”

“Visiting?”

“For the weekend. She’s flying in on Thursday.”

Connor is quiet again. The first time he tries to make plans this far in advance is also the first time Oliver is busy—Oliver would laugh if he weren’t trying to piece together a solution that won’t force Connor to put himself out there for the second time in one phone call.

“She’s leaving Sunday afternoon, so Sunday night is open. If that’s—if it’s okay with you?”

“Sure,” Connor says. “Whatever.” A pause. “Where’s she flying in from?”

“San Francisco,” Oliver says. “I mean—San Francisco airport. She’s coming from Santa Cruz. That’s like an hour and a half south of San Francisco. Closer to an hour from the airport, though. My aunt’s going to drive her and I’m going to need you to say something to stop me from babbling on about even more information you didn’t—”

“Stop you?” Oliver can hear him smiling. “Why? It’s cute.”

Another voice in the background, this one deeper. 

“Okay, I should really go,” Connor says. “Sunday’s good.”

He hangs up before Oliver can say anything else.

—

Oliver is in the kitchen and doesn’t hear the knock on the door. If he had, he’d have exclaimed not to answer it and run to open the door just a crack, just enough to shoo Connor away, and then told his mom someone had the wrong apartment.

But he’s in the kitchen, his attention on the stir-fry he’s making for lunch, and she answers the door.

“Teddy?” she calls from the living room. “Someone’s here to see you!”

The nickname grabs his attention—she only calls him that when she’s at least a little bit angry—and the information itself makes him downright panicked. He moves the pan to the back burner and steps cautiously into the living room.

Where Connor is introducing himself to Oliver’s mother.

He wants to catch Connor’s eye and shake his head, or look pointedly at the door, or find some other way to signal that he should excuse himself and come back in five or so hours. He tries to, but Connor is too focused on charming his mom to notice.

“Pardon me,” Connor is saying. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here, Ms. Pasion, or I would have brought something—”

Oliver’s mom is grinning from ear to ear. “It’s Mrs. Morrison, actually. I married. And don’t you worry about it, I’m happy just meeting you.” She turns her attention on Oliver. “You didn’t tell me you were seeing someone, Teddy.”

‘Teddy?’ Connor mouths. Oliver’s mom is short enough that he can see the entirety of Connor’s amused expression over her head.

“Short for Theodore,” Oliver explains. “My middle name.” At least she isn’t using ‘Theodore’ in full right now. She’s only _slightly_ mad about this.

“He could have joined us for lunch yesterday,” she says, almost accusatory.

“It’s—he’s not—”

Connor cuts him off. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Morrison, I was busy with a trial this week and had a lot of work to catch up on yesterday. I would have loved to have joined you.”

Connor has enough tact not to tell his mom they’re just sleeping together, not seeing each other, but Oliver doesn’t understand why he’s acting like a mother-son-boyfriend dinner was ever a possibility. “Connor’s a law student, Mom.”

“A _law student_ ,” she repeats. Her eyes practically glitter.

Oliver has to cut this off before it goes any further. “I was in the middle of making us lunch, actually. A taxi’s coming to take her to the airport in an hour. Maybe you should—”

“Keep your mom company while you finish getting lunch ready?” Connor interrupts. “Happy to. How was the show last night, Mrs. Morrison?”

“You can call me Ann,” she says. Smiling that wide has to hurt.

Oliver has to consciously keep his jaw from dropping.

—

“I told you Sunday night,” Oliver says, after his mom has left in her taxi and they’ve come back upstairs from bringing her bags down. “Sunday _night_. In what universe does that translate to ‘Sunday at 1:30 in the afternoon’?”

“I must have remembered wrong.”

“I said she was _leaving_ in the afternoon, so I’d be free at _night_. You couldn’t have called to check?”

“Jesus. Relax, will you? It happened. It was fine. Now take your clothes off.”

Oliver doesn’t much feel like relaxing, to be honest, but they haven’t fucked in nearly a week. He starts to unbutton his shirt, and Connor pulls off his own, smirking.

It doesn’t make sense that Connor is so calm right now. He’s a practiced charmer and quick on his feet, but the polite boyfriend act should have dropped the moment Oliver’s mom left.

“You did it on purpose,” Oliver realizes. He stops working on his buttons. “You wanted to meet my mom.”

“What makes you say that?” Connor asks. Still calm. He steps close, and Oliver almost loses his train of thought. Before Connor it had been a few months, but now no sex between Monday and Sunday turns him into a drooling teenager.

But—no. Connor’s not getting out of this that easily. “Either you wanted to meet my mom, or you missed me so much that you just _had_ to come see me earlier than I said. Which one do you want to admit to?”

Connor just kisses him. Oliver gives in. (Six days, damn it.) He sucks at Connor’s lower lip while Connor undoes the last two buttons on his shirt and pushes it back, off his shoulders and down his arms, briefly trapping his wrists behind him before he tugs at the cuffs and the whole thing drops to the floor. He lets Connor lead, lets him take off his glasses and push him down onto the couch and press him back into the cushions. Connor mouths at his neck and Oliver’s body goes pliant.

His brain, though, isn’t quite so cooperative.

“You know she’s going to tell all of my aunts about it.”

Connor bites down lightly but continues undeterred.

“The whole family’s going to want boyfriend updates the next time I’m in town.”

Even the b-word doesn’t stop him. He licks a wet stripe down Oliver’s chest and gets to work on his belt buckle. And Oliver is hard and his whole body is telling him to just go along with it, but his brain—

He rises up on his elbows and looks down at Connor, who’s undone the button on Oliver’s pants but pauses now with his fingers on the zipper. “Why aren’t you freaking out?” 

Connor sighs, rolls his eyes, and moves forward so quickly that Oliver gasps, not expecting Connor to shift his weight from sitting back on his heels to hovering over Oliver on his hands and knees. Close enough to kiss him, which he does, briefly.

“Can you shut up?” he says, his voice low, lips nearly brushing Oliver’s again as they move. “Please? I almost don’t want to blow you anymore.”

Oliver moans at that despite himself and brings his hands up to cup Connor’s face and pull him down for another kiss. “No,” he says, “I can’t”—Connor kisses him again—“I can’t shut up, you just met my mom and she loved you and we—you and I—you and I aren’t—” 

Another kiss; this one keeps going a while, until Connor takes his tongue out of Oliver’s mouth and asks, “How many aunts do you have?”

“I—what? Why?”

“You said ‘all of my aunts.’ Made it sound like there’s a lot of them. How many?”

“My mom has five sisters.”

“Big family,” Connor says, sounding neither bored nor interested. Conversational, maybe.

“I don’t have any siblings, though. Twelve cousins if you include the ones on my stepdad’s side.”

“ _Mr._ Morrison.”

“Yeah—uh, Peter.” He’s still cupping Connor’s face. One of Connor’s hands is in his hair. “My mom married him when I was fifteen. Which was good timing because I didn’t have to feel as guilty over wanting to go far away for college.”

“Far away from Santa Cruz.”

Some part of his brain is still afraid Connor’s going to get up and put his shirt back on and go home and never call him again, but it’s a small part. A very small part. Connor is looking him in the eye and asking him about himself, or prompting him about himself, like he means it. Like he wants to know. With Connor above him like this, inches from him, he’s all Oliver can see.

“Yeah,” Oliver says. “Far away from Santa Cruz. I wasn’t out to my family then and I just—I needed some space. And then, well, I liked it here, and I stayed. I go back for Christmas and Mother’s Day.”

“You went to Penn?”

“Dual degree in Computer Science and Linguistics, minors in History and Asian American Studies.”

“Nerd.”

 _Like you weren’t a straight-A student_ , Oliver wants to say. _Where’d you go for undergrad?_ he wants to say. _Tell me about_ your _family_.

He guides Connor’s face down to his and kisses him, slowly, thoroughly, so Connor will understand. Connor will talk about all of this when he’s ready. This is no longer an uncertainty, but an eventuality.

“Now can I blow you?” Connor says into his mouth.

“Yeah,” Oliver breathes. “I’ll shut up now.”

“Finally,” Connor says. He nips at Oliver’s throat on his way down. “Thank god.”

—

Connor stays the night. He wakes Oliver up with a wonderful-disgusting morning breath kiss before he leaves a little after dawn. He comes over again for dinner that night, no takeout in hand now that he knows Oliver can cook. Tuesday he calls to say Oliver should come over after work and give him a reward for finishing the report he’s working on. Wednesday he’s busy with a case but sends dirty texts all evening, culminating in a call before Oliver goes to bed. Another call Thursday, this one not the least bit dirty and lasting over an hour. Dinner again Friday, with the complaint that there’s nothing edible at his own place. 

Morning breath on Saturday. 

Morning breath on Sunday.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i never write fic for ongoing canon so i'm p nervous about posting this! 
> 
> my oliver is an amalgam of what we've seen of oliver in canon + me and two of my cousins. oliver's mom is an amalgam of my mom and her (five...) sisters. there was going to be way more family exposition but then i reminded myself no one actually wants to read about my family under the guise of oliver headcanons, regardless of how excited i am to see a mixed filipino/white (and out!!) actor on a major television show.
> 
> the once tour stopped in philly in 2013 but digging up actual broadway national tour schedules to anchor this at a particular point in time, while totally a thing i would do, would have required more time than i have at present. this is not set in 2013. it is, however, set in an alternate timeline that involves nobody killing anyone.
> 
> guess where my oliver got his tendency towards rambling about info nobody asked for.
> 
> please do talk to me about oliver (and htgawm in general but. oliver) on [tumblr](http://talithan.tumblr.com) / [twitter](http://twitter.com/sasaharamaki)
> 
> cait you owe me connor fic now
> 
> 11/6/14 - i didn't think my last name hcs would be shot down this fast lmao...i'll leave this fic as-is but be "canon"-compliant in the future i suppose. going to take me a while to warm up to the idea of oliver with a white last name though -___-


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